Black Lesbian Lit Virtual Reading Group

Swandiver is putting together a reading group on black lesbian literature and asking people to make suggestions for books they might like to read. The books must be written by and about black lesbians. I’m not sure if it is an African-American only list being generated, but I took the term broadly to mean the entire diaspora.

There have been several suggestions made already that you might want to check out.

These are the books I suggested:

Loraine Hansberry’s autobiography Young Gifted and Black

Nella Larson’s Passing

Toni Morrison Sula

Alice Walker The Color Purple

Sharon Bridgforth Bull-Jean Stories

Jackie Kay Trumpet

Nancy Rawles Love Like Gumbo and Crawfish Dreams

Makeda Silvera The Heart Does Not Bend (Afro-Canadian)

Ana Maria Lara’s Erzulie’s Skirt (Afra-Latina)

Lisa C. Moore Does Your Mama Know? Anth of Coming Out Stories

Audre Lorde Sister Outsider

Stacyann Chin The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir (Afro-Caribbean)

Penny Micklebury The Mimi Malone Mysteries (pulp)

Jewell Gomez The Gilda Stories (vampire fiction)

Cheryl Clarke (poetry)

Nikki Giovanni (poetry)

So which writers and texts would you suggest? Leave them here in the comment section and be sure to leave them over at Swandiver here.

The first book they will be reading is Passing for Black by Linda Villarosa. You have until July 1 to get and read your copy. (FYI – Linda Villarosa edited Body and Soul: The Black Woman’s Guide to Physical and Emotional Health a quintessential text for all of us african diasporic feminists looking for a culturally specific Our Bodies, Ourselves.)